In a city shaped by generations-in-the-making food-ways, Monday is red beans and rice day.

The tradition stems from pre-washing-machine times, when housewives would do laundry by hand while leaving a pot of red beans to cook on the stove all day. Today, smoky red beans still simmer away in kitchens throughout the Big Easy on Mondays.

Native son John Besh knows this to be true. But for 10 years now, Mondays remind him of those agonizing days right after Hurricane Katrina, when catastrophic flooding left 80 percent of New Orleans under water.